Essay/Term paper: American education system vs asian education system

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Education

American Education system versus Asian Education System
Today the American education system is no longer the best in the world. With declining test scores and poor academic achievement, people have questioned whether our current educational system is working for us? On the other side of the Pacific, the situation is totally different. Students of Asian countries achieve higher academic achievements, and they rank at the top on math and science tests. If their educational system is better than the U.S system, should we adopt their educational system or not?
America the land of opportunity, which is famous for its democratic society and unique culture. People in America like to be free, to do whatever they want to do without any restrictions. This belief is reflected in the American educational system. In American schools, teachers and students are at the same social level. Students are encouraged to exchange their own opinions with the teacher. From an early age, students in the American educational system have been taught that they have the ability to achieve whatever they want to be, but rarely have been told how they can achieve their goal. This is because in America there are so many ways to achieve one"s dream.
Because of this belief in natural born ability in the land of opportunity, students receive very little pressure in school, so whatever they do in school is totally based on their personal beliefs. If a student wants to be successful he or she can study very hard and get in to a very good college. On the other hand if a student doesn"t have any self control and just wants to get school over with, it is OK too, because nobody cares. The advantage of this kind of educational system is that , it really developes student"s individual thinking skills, they are encouraged to try out different options to achieve their goal. For example Bill Gates, who dropped out of college, started his own company, now he is one of the richest man in the world. That bad thing about this system is that not that many students don"t have the responsibility to get good grades or become successful many believe that even if you don"t have a good education you can still get a good paying job. That"s why many students in school are doing poorly on their school work.
In Asian countries, the cultures and social standards are totally different from the U.S. In those countries most of their values are based on Confucius which heavily stresses education and group values. One"s social status is based on their education level. Starting from elementary school, students have been taught that if you want to be successful in life you must have a good education, any other way is considers inappropriate. In the Asian school systems, educators rank students by their scores. So, if your rank is high you are a good student and you will have a good chance to get into a good school. If your rank is low then you are a bad student it is a sign of your are going to be a looser. Nobody cares if you are talented or not. Under these pressures, students compete hard with other students. They study five hours a day just trying to gain more points on a test so they can get into a higher rank. In school, teachers try to stuff more knowledge into students so their class can be better than other class in the School. Schools set stricter rules so their students can be better than the students in other schools.
Through these efforts of setting high standards it"s no surprise that Asian students rank at the top of academic achievement. The advantage of this kind of system is that the school systems can provide the society year after year with high quality personnel with the same academic standard, although most of those students are that creative, because they are not allowed to do much free thinking in school. Free thinking is considered a waste of time.
In reality, a person must be very creative on a job otherwise he or she will be replaced by someone in no time. Because the American educational system allows and encourages free thinking in school, U.S is still the #1 in innovation and scientific research. If the U.S adopts the Asian educational system it"s probaly going to be in confilict with the constitution on the issue of freedom of speech. Because of this, I think the current educational system is well suited for America.